Join us at Southern Season's Cooking School for an amazing evening of southern-inspired food and wine, as we celebrate the long-awaited "Third Helping" of the Southern Cultures food issue. The party starts at 6:00 pm on Friday, March 27th, just...Read more

Please stop by the Center and check out our Spring 2015 art exhibit. These photographs by John M. Hall reveal the beautiful and unique home and garden of Anne Spencer in Lynchburg, Virginia. The house,...Read more

Introducing our Best of Food Issue--a compendium of biscuits, blackberries, Mother Corn and the Dixie Pig. Order this special collection PLUS a Southern Cultures tote bag (including original artwork by Phil Blank), Farmer's Daughter Brand pickles (as featured in...Read more

As part of his What’s Up Down South series, Senior Associate Director William Ferris will introduce us to Chris Zinkhan and Blake Stansell, the Chief Executive Officer and Senior Vice President of The Forestland Group, this Wednesday at 12:30 pm. In “Dramatic Changes in the Southern Timber Patch: From Pine Tar to Carbon Credits,” Chris and Blake will trace the significant changes in timber utilization, forest economics, and ownership of timberland in the South and beyond.

The Forestland Group’s staff includes some of the nation’s leaders in forestry, forest finance, and conservation. In addition, TFG and its affiliated entities contract with independent forestry, environmental, and natural resource consulting firms to more effectively manage its timber and non-timber assets. TFG oversees the forest resources for its affiliated Heartwood Forestland Funds across 3.6 million acres in 24 states and five countries. The regional teams working in conjunction with local forestry consulting firms are responsible for the daily, on ground management activities and property oversight.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Please join us for the final Hutchins Lecture of the 2014-15 academic year, as Waldo E. Martin Jr. addresses “Reaping the Whirlwind”: The Contested History of the Black Panther Party. This lecture will be held in the Kresge Foundation Room (039 Graham Memorial Hall).

This talk will draw upon the making and reception of Martin’s co-authored (with Joshua Bloom) work Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (U of California P, 2013). The history of the Black Panther Party is a minefield, but Martin will discuss key enduring historical controversies surrounding how the party has been perceived and conceptualized over time by various constituencies, including former party members, scholars, and ideologues.

Central to this presentation will be an analysis of two questions. First, he will discuss why the party was important in its own time and the party’s enduring historical importance. Second, he will argue for the centrality of the party’s radical politics in our continuing efforts to historicize and understand the party.

Waldo E. Martin Jr. is the Alexander F. & May T. Morrison Professor of American History & Citizenship at the University of California, Berkeley. He has authored, co-authored, and co-edited a host of authoritative works on African American History and Culture, with a special focus on the Civil Rights Movement. He is currently Co-Editor (with Patricia A. Sullivan) of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture at UNC Press, and he recently published (with Deborah Gray White & Mia Bay) Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans with Documents (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013).

This lecture is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Durham natives Sally SouthDerr and Isaac Derr describe themselves as “two young songwriters with nothin’ better to do” (with credit to Steve Miller). This brother-sister duo recorded their two albums, the 2014 release Set Sail and the 2015 release Where Nobody Knows Me, at the Rubber Room Studio in Chapel Hill.

The duo finished their second album, featuring songs written by Isaac, despite the slight distraction of Sally flying to Hollywood to audition for American Idol. You can listen, like, share, or buy their songs on Bandcamp and ReverbNation.

This event is free and open to the public. Bring a picnic blanket and stay for a while!

What role have Maya writers and their literatures played in the affirmation of indigenous cultural identity and the struggle for indigenous rights and self-determination in Guatemala since the 1960s? Please join us for a lunchtime discussion with Emilio del Valle Escalante, Assistant Professor of Spanish in UNC’s Department of Romance Studies, on “Maya Literary Resurgence in Guatemala.”

Professor Escalante will answer the question above by offering a critical discussion of the poetry of Kaqchikel Maya authors Francisco Morales Santos and Luis de Lión. Given that the context of the 1960s defines the beginning of a 36-year-long civil war, he argues that Morales Santos and Lión respond to that experience as well as the interest of the Guatemalan left in incorporating the Maya population into the armed struggle. These Kaqchikel authors embrace the socialist ideal proposed by the Guatemalan left while using the left to propose and build a political space to articulate their own Maya national liberation; that is, their poetry speaks of revolution and socialism as well as Maya cultural/national vindication and decolonization.

This event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to Patrick Horn at pathorn@unc.edu.